Comcast to bury fiber-optic gear in Georgetown

Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) says it is looking at ways to bury fiber-optic gear contained in the seven refrigerator-sized utility boxes that it recently removed from sidewalks in the historic Georgetown neighborhood in Washington, D.C.

The MSO received complaints from Georgetown residents after it began installing the utility boxes in October. Comcast VP of government and regulatory affairs Donna Rattley-Washington told attendees at a Georgetown advisory neighborhood commission meeting on Monday that the company did not know it was required to win approval of the Old Georgetown Board, which is controlled by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, before it installed the utility boxes.

"What we now know is that there's another process," Rattley-Washington said at the meeting, according to The Georgetown Dish.

In order to give cable technicians access to the underground gear, Comcast is designing an access panel containing a hatch on the surface, Thomas Luebke, commission secretary at the U.S. Fine Arts Commission, told the community newspaper. "It's a great outcome that these things, that were something of an eyesore in a historic district, have been removed," Luebke added.

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